Martin Canin (Brooklyn, NY, 1927. Rhinebeck, NY, 2000) was an American Color Field painter and contemporary of the Washington Color School (Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland). He grew up in New York, receiving a B.F.A from Syracuse University in 1951. Upon graduation, he worked around the United States for a number of years, especially in California. In 1959, Canin decided to pursue painting abroad, moving to Japan with his family. He spent most of the 1960s and 1970s in Japan, New York, Europe, and Israel.
Upon returning to New York in the 1970’s, Canin resumed his teaching position at the Parsons School of Design, giving classes on drawing, textile work, and color theory. During his lifetime, he was exhibited by Graham gallery in New York and had various solo shows in Europe and Japan.
His work is in the permanent collections of the Tate Modern, the Yale University Art Gallery, The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, and the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL.
As a color field painter, Canin intensifies the ways we perceive chromatic differences by juxtaposing them in bands and forms. His style creates “neon”, “golden”, or “buttery” vibrations — hypnotizing the viewer in their calm warmth. Despite the time he spent living in Europe, Canin’s work draws inspiration from the seasonal colors of the Hudson River Valley and Japan; One feels in it the variated tones of a Maple leaf in Autumn or the blues of a summer sky. Though he expressed himself strictly through paint, it seems as if Canin was influenced by Josef Albers’ experiments with color through paper cutouts for his prints. In essence a light purity of play encompasses the power with which his paintings strike the viewer. It is of no surprise that he spent his final years living and working in Rhinebeck, close to his origins and those of American Art.
Luminosity is still the goal, oil paint on canvas still the preferred medium, shape and color still the means to speak my particular expression.
